What assistance there is comes from a multitude of programs administered by a range of agencies, including the Departments of Treasury, Human Resources, Environmental Quality, Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, as well as the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Sorting through the maze can be overwhelming for distressed cities already lean on staffing.

What can be done?

Form a new Department of Community Management and Growth to consolidate local assistance functions in one department that can better coordinate State resources, increase effectiveness and streamline requirements for local governments. Importantly, it can act also as a voice for local governments within the administration, much as the Michigan Department of Agriculture does for the farming community, to assure long term sustainability of local governments.

The most destructive urban riots of the 1960s occurred in Newark and Detroit.

New Jersey responded by creating a Department of Community Affairs to better coordinate services to local communities. Michigan prepared a similar proposal that would have filled the last of the 20 state departments authorized by the Michigan Constitution, but the effort failed to gain legislative support. The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has operated successfully for more than four decades delivering services through a wide range of coordinated programs addressing problems related to management and finance, community planning and development, housing production and fire and building safety. Michigan should follow suit.

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Today, the problems facing troubled cities in Michigan are more complex than four decades ago. Metropolitan areas have expanded and central cites have been saddled with declining populations and tax bases. Some services to residents can best be delivered through regional authorities, such as the newly created Regional Transit Authority, and others through inter-local agreements among neighboring communities. A Department of Community Management and Growth would be well positioned to help design and facilitate these new service delivery approaches. The department would be ideally situated to provide state assistance to citizen-based community organizations that are tackling problems of blight, abandonment and safety in the State’s most distressed neighborhoods..

Michigan cities are the building blocks upon which the state rests. Many are facing critical problems that are beyond their capacity to solve and others are not far behind. State assistance for helping these communities needs to be expanded and effectively coordinated.

The time is ripe to form a new Department of Community Management and Growth to assure long term growth and prosperity for local governments in Michigan.

John E. Mogk is a professor of law at Wayne State University in Detroit.